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The basic math of the 2012 campaign for control of the US Senate is this:

Democrats currently control the Upper House by a margin of 53-47. They are defending 23 seats. Republicans are defending 10 seats.

Depending on which party wins the presidential election, Republicans will need to win either 3 or 4 seats to regain Senate control.

At the moment, Republicans are favored to do just that (or maybe even a bit better than that). A race-by-race analysis points to a net gain of 4 or 5 seats for the GOP, for two reasons: (1) too many Democrats are running for re-election in traditionally Republican states, and (2) few Republican seats are really at risk.

There are roughly 19 US Senate seats that most analysts regard as safely Democratic or safely Republican. On the Democratic side, those seats are in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin. On the Republican side, those seats are in Arizona, Indiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming. One or two of these "safe seats" will become unsafe. That's just the way it works. So we'll keep watching them for signs of movement. As for the remainder, keep on clicking and we'll walk you through the competitive races and the "newsworthy" races (all of which involve Tea Party challenges to long-standing GOP incumbents).